Workers' Flows and Real Wage Cyclicality

This study investigates real wage cyclicality in Portugal for the years of 1986-98, addressing the heterogeneity in wages responses to aggregate labor market conditions for workers' hirings and separations. The results exhibit a moderate procyclical behavior of real wages for continuously employed workers, in particular, for job stayers. For workers' accessions a strongly procyclical behavior in wages was observed, which is consistent with the idea that entry wages are much more procyclical than current wages. This empirical evidence suggests that even micro-data estimates of real wage cyclicality may conceal a strong procyclical wage behavior, when heterogeneity on wages responses to aggregate conditions between employed workers and hirings and separations is not taken into account.

Long term impacts of compensatory preschool on health and behavior: evidence from Head Start

This paper provides new estimates of the medium and long-term impacts of Head Start on the health and behavioral problems of its participants. We identify these impacts using discontinuities in the probability of participation induced by program eligibility rules. Our strategy allows us to identify the effect of Head Start for the set of individuals in the neighborhoods of multiple discontinuities, which vary with family size, state and year (as opposed to a smaller set of individuals neighboring a single discontinuity). Participation in the program reduces the incidence of behavioral problems, serious health problems and obesity of male children at ages 12 and 13. It also lowers depression and obesity among adolescents, and reduces engagement in criminal activities for young adults.

The return to firm investment in human capital

In this paper the authors estimate the rate of return to firm investments in human capital in the form of formal job training. They use a panel of large firms with unusually detailed information on the duration of training, the direct costs of training, and several firm characteristics such as their output, workforce characteristics, and capital stock. Their estimates of the return to training vary substantially across firms. On average it is -7 percent for firms not providing training and 24 percent for those providing training. Formal job trainingis a good investment for many firms and the economy, possibly yielding higher returns than either investments in physical capital or investments in schooling. In spite of this, observed amounts of formal training are small.Primary Education,Education For All,Access&Equity in Basic Education,Tertiary Education,Economic Theory&Research

Human Capital Policy

This paper considers alternative policies for promoting skill formation that are targetted to different stages of the life cycle. We demonstrate the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills that are formed early in the life cycle in accounting for racial, ethnic and family background gaps in schooling and other dimensions of socioeconomic success. Most of the gaps in college attendance and delay are determined by early family factors. Children from better families and with high ability earn higher returns to schooling. We find only a limited role for tuition policy or family income supplements in eliminating schooling and college attendance gaps. At most 8% of American youth are credit constrained in the traditional usage of that term. The evidence points to a high return to early interventions and a low return to remedial or compensatory interventions later in the life cycle. Skill and ability beget future skill and ability. At current levels of funding, traditional policies like tuition subsidies, improvements in school quality, job training and tax rebates are unlikely to be effective in closing gaps.

Trends in Quality-Adjusted Skill Premia in the United States, 1960-2000

This paper presents new evidence that increases in college enrollment lead to a decline in the average quality of college graduates between 1960 and 2000, resulting in a decrease of 6 percentage points in the college premium. We show that although a standard demand and supply framework can qualitatively account for the trend in the college and age premia over this period, substantial quantitative adjustments still need to be made to account for changes in quality.college premium, composition effects, inequality

Enforcement of labor regulation and informality

Enforcement of labor regulations in the formal sector may drive workers to informality because they increase the costs of formal labor. But better compliance with mandated benefits makes it attractive to be a formal employee. We show that, in locations with frequent inspections workers pay for mandated benefits by receiving lower wages. Wage rigidity prevents downward adjustment at the bottom of the wage distribution. As a result, lower paid formal sector jobs become attractive to some informal workers, inducing them to want to move to the formal sector.

The return to firm investments in human capital

In this paper the authors estimate the rate of return to firm investments in human capital in the form of formal job training. The authors use a panel of large firms with detailed information on the duration of training, the direct costs of training, and several firm characteristics. The authors estimate of the return to training are substantial (8.6 percent) for those providing training. Results suggest that formal job training is a good investment for these firms possibly yielding comparable returns to either investments in physical capital or investments in schooling. The paper proceeds as follows. Section two describes the data the authors use. In section three, the authors present basic framework for estimating the production function and the cost function. In section fourth the authors present empirical estimates of the costs and benefits of training and compute the marginal internal rate of return for investments in training. Finally, section fifth concludes.,LaborPolicies,Primary Education,Education For All,Access&Equity in Basic Education

Wages and the risk of displacement

In this paper a simultaneous-equations model of firm closing and wage determination is specified in order to analyse how wages adjust to unfavorable product demand shocks that raise the risk of displacement through firm closing, and to what extent an exogenous wage change affects the exit likelihood. Using a longitudinal matched worker-firm data set from Portugal, the estimation results suggest that, under the existence of noncompetitive rents, the fear of job loss leads workers to accept wage concessions, even though a compensating differential for the ex ante risk of displacement might exist. A novel result that emerges from this study is that firms with a higher incidence of minimum wage earners are more vulnerable to adverse shocks due to their inability to adjust wages downward. Indeed, minimum wage restrictions were seen to increase the failure rates. JEL Classification: J31, J65concessions, displacement risk, Wages

Mandated benefits, employment, and inequality in a dual economy

The authors study the effect of enforcement of labor regulation in Brazil, an economy with a large informal sector and strict labor law. Enforcement affects mainly the degree of compliance with mandated benefits (severance pay, health, and safety) in the formal sector and the registration of informal workers. The authors find that stricter enforcement leads to higher unemployment but lower income inequality. The authors also show that, at the top of the formal wage distribution, workers bear the cost of mandated benefits by receiving lower wages. This is not true at the bottom, because of downward wage rigidity. As a result, formal sector jobs at the bottom of the wage distribution become more attractive, inducing the low skilled self-employed to search for formal jobs.Labor Markets,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Labor Policies,,Economic Theory&Research